And Yet, Even More on Resumes

Honestly, I'm getting bored with writing about resume construction, development, presentation etc.  It seems as if this topic will never be put to rest.  Every day I review dozens of resumes from C-Level execs to Help Desk personnel and so on.  It doesn't seem to matter what level of employment a person happens to be in - terrible resumes (as well as exceptional ones) run the gamut. 
This week I was reviewing resumes for an Electronic Medical Record training project for a major healthcare client.  EMR trainers come from all walks of life, many from outside the Healthcare or Healthcare IT industry and due to that fact a good majority of the training resumes will have multiple misspellings of industry software and applications and acronyms.  Most frequently abused are:  Siemens Soarian (often spelled Sorian), HIPAA (often spelled HIPPA), Pretty much EVERY Cerner application: PathNet, PowerChart etc (often misspelled by separating the Net or not capitalizing the Net or most recently I saw Power CHAT throughout an entire resume).  This could go on for pages but I'll give you - Dear Reader - a break.

In one particular resume this week I noted names of hospitals and consulting firms spelled incorrectly, along with industry terminology, system applications AND even basic every-day words.
When I politely emailed the candidate to express my concern over their resume they responded that they were "sorry that I didn't understand industry terminology and spelling and that I should take another look".  After their response I took the time to highlight dozens of words and terms on their resume and email it back to them.   Another candidate presented a resume that said "Cheat Shit" though-out the entire resume instead of "Cheat Sheet". 

I often make spelling errors in haste and typos are inevitable, so I normally take no issue to a few misspellings in a resume - particularly when our industry language will not be corrected by spell check, but Cheat Shit? lets be real here.  Fortunately for candidates that go through staffing and consulting firms, they have a recruiter that will proof-read and revise their resume prior to presenting it to the end-client.  Other folks aren't so fortunate.  Many recruiters, myself included, have been known to turn down a candidate for a position due to a poorly written resume.  I've seen clients turn down Cerner related resumes when the candidate hasn't appropriately capitalized the "Net".  Grammatical and punctuation errors are also detrimental but not as much so as spelling errors.

In conclusion (are you relieved?) what I'm desperately trying to express in my resume related posts is that you CAN NEVER BE TOO THOROUGH when you are proof-reading your resume.  Below are a few tips that can greatly reduce your chances of submitting a bad resume.

1.  Always proof read your resume one last time a few hours AFTER you've written or revised it.
2.  NEVER submit your resume without proof reading it multiple times.
3.  Whenever possible enlist someone you know from inside your industry to proof read your resume before you submit it.
4.  If you are in a very specialized industry like HIT - DO NOT rely on a professional resume developer if they are not familiar with your industry.
5.  DO NOT rely on spell check or auto correct, it will often find errors where there are none or it will auto correct industry terms that are spelled correctly.
6.  When a recruiter tells you your resume needs work - LISTEN to them.

Your resume has to represent you in your absence.  Nothing limits your employment opportunities more than a poorly written resume. 
For more information on how to build and format an eye-catching resume use the search box in the upper right corner of the blog and search "resume".

By the way - catch a grammar, punctuation or spelling error in any of my posts?  Please notify me. Your proof-reading is always appreciated!


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